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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Genetic Chile

About a month ago my boyfriend surprised me with a little
indoor gardening kit that included seeds from three varieties of peppers. The
idea was to sprout them in tiny plastic pots inside a tiny plastic greenhouse,
and then once they got big enough they could be planted outside. So this past
weekend, partially in celebration of finishing my thesis and thus actually
having time to do fun things, and partially in celebration of the fact that the
weather has finally turned Spring-like, I decided to transfer the seedlings
into big planters and move them out of the house and onto the back porch. Here
they are!

GM peppers grown lovingly in flower pots with organic soil? Possibly.

Each little seedling is about an inch and a half high and
has two tiny leaves. I may have moved them out of their little plastic greenhouse a little prematurely—there was plenty of room in there for them to
grow some more—but I was worried their roots would get cramped in the tiny pot,
and that the water drainage situation was insufficient. And I really
wanted to set up a planter garden outside. I just hope we don’t get another
freakishly cold day!

Anyway, in honor of my pepper plants, I decided to watch Genetic Chile, a documentary directed by
Christopher Dudley. This documentary explores the controversy surrounding the
genetic modification of the New Mexico chile. In short, biological engineers at New Mexico State University are working on developing a genetically
modified version of the New Mexico chile designed to work with certain types of
chemicals, similar to the type of genetic modification that Monsanto is known
for. The impetus for this, supposedly, is that due to changes in immigration
policy there is a shortage of agricultural laborers in parts of New Mexico, and
this genetically modified chile will allow farmers to continue producing chiles
with less labor. Many researchers, farmers, and consumers in the area are
opposed to this because they feel that crops of this genetically modified chile
will be bad for the environment and the
economy, and because they feel that genetically modified chiles being grown in
the area poses a major genetic contamination risk for currently grown and heirloom
varieties of New Mexico chiles being grown in the area, which are not only an
important part of New Mexico’s economy, but also an important part of New
Mexican cultural identity. With these circumstances as the framework, Dudley
uses the New Mexico chile to discuss genetically modified foods and the
environmental, economic, an health impacts that they can have. Social and political impacts were touched on slightly as well (as in what it means to have genetic modification and chemicals displace immigrant labor), but not as much as I wish they'd been.

Overall, none of the information given in the documentary
about the genetic modification of food was new to me, but I think that for
someone who hasn’t read or heard very much about GMOs before, this documentary
could serve as a good overview. That being said, I appreciated the way in which
one food in particular, in one place in particular, was used as a tool for
thinking about broader issues related to GMOs. In that way, in reminded me of
Anna Tsing’s “Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species.”

This documentary also made me think about the genetics and the politics of my pepper plants sitting outside on my back porch. On one
hand, growing them makes me feel like a bit of a urban gardener. I like the
idea of being able to grow food for myself, my neighbors, and my friends to eat.
It’s not as though I could live off of the food grown in my small garden, but
it can supplement the food I buy at the grocery store, and it can keep me
connected with an activity that is both enjoyable and in line, I think, with my
politics- and health-related food ideology. However, it occurred to me that I actually have no idea
whether or not the pepper seeds I planted are genetically modified—they came to
me as a thoughtful gift, in packaging covered in beautiful, brightly-colored
pictures of peppers. But I didn’t look into what their genetic history was. I
wasn’t even thinking about it. I was just excited about my urban gardening
project. But now that I think about it, it seems quite possible that they are
GMOs. They came to me in a cutesy indoor gardening kit purchased in Texas, not
directly from a farmer or gardener, not from an organic or heirloom seed
distribution company. So the chances are good, right? But I still can’t help
but feel that by cultivating the plants and eventually (hopefully) harvesting
and eating the peppers, I’m “doing” food activism. But I'm questioning if that's legitimate or not, considering I don't know where these seeds came from or whether or not they're GM. I plan to do some research on my pepper plants’ origins and
re-evaluate. But on the other hand, I feel a little resentful of the fact that I might find out something I don't want to be true about my urban gardening project. It'll complicate things. And I don't yet know how I will negotiate the situation if it turns out that my peppers are genetically modified. Does it matter? Can GM-ness be outweighed by they fact that I'm seeing my peppers from seed to fruit? What about the fact that I'm using organic soil and what if I start composting and giving the compost to my plants. Is there a balance that can be struck? I guess I'll have to wait and see.